Be sure to include your name, daytime phone number, address, name and phone number of legal next-of-kin, method of payment, and the name of the funeral home/crematory to contact for verification of death.

Concern over a lack of job prospects may have convinced Spence Jackson to take his own life over the weekend, his final note suggests. “I’m so sorry,” the note said. “I just can’t take being unemployed again.” The note confirms what a Jackson friend told The Star Monday — that Jackson, 44, was worried about future employment after Tom Schweich committed suicide Feb. 26.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said Tuesday that he wants legislation on his desk by the end of the week to clarify that the state’s new religious-freedom law does not allow discrimination against gays and lesbians. Pence defended the measure as a vehicle to protect religious liberty but said he has been meeting with lawmakers “around the clock” to address concerns that it would allow businesses to deny services to gay customers.

Mayor Sly James said Tuesday that he has “the best job in politics” as he gave his fourth “State of the City” speech. He delivered his remarks at Starlight Theater, exactly one week before a primary municipal election in which the mayor is expected to handily defeat challengers Clay Chastain and Vincent Lee.

Republicans and liberal Democrats have found something to agree on: Both want to keep alive the prospect that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will run for president. People on each side are driven by self-interest as they cling to a dream that is all but certain to remain in the realm of fantasy.

R. Crosby Kemper III, the director of the Kansas City Public Library, alleges that he’s “never been treated like that in my 54 years of active politics” after he and a group protesting state cuts to library funding were "thrown out" of the governo's office. Nixon’s office counters that the group was asked “politely” to leave.

The Missouri office of the American Civil Liberties Union is representing a businessman in Ferguson who wants to publish material about the city’s upcoming municipal elections. Missouri law says campaign communications must include the name and address of the sponsor. But the businessman says he’s afraid of retribution if he identifies himself, so he wants to provide the material anonymously.

To raise money for early childhood education programs in the state, Raise Your Hand for Kids wants to raise Missouri’s tobacco tax 50 cents to to 67 cents per pack. But the group may have competition as other causes set their sights on increasing what is the lowest tobacco tax in the nation. It also faces resistance from the state’s gas stations and convenience stores.

Indiana lawmakers scrambled Monday to control damage from a widely criticized new law that critics fear could permit discrimination against gays and lesbians. The state is among about a dozen where measures aimed at preventing government from infringing on people’s religious beliefs have been introduced this year.

An abysmal turnout is likely for next week’s primary elections in Kansas City. Voters are uninterested in the three-person mayor’s race because the mayor remains primarily a 13th vote on the City Council, and the council itself is relatively powerless.

David Kensinger, who left as chief of staff in 2012, was part of select group asked to give feedback on budget items, including a tobacco tax increase, before it was unveiled to lawmakers earlier this year. Some lawmakers say he continues to have influence within the Brownback administration.

Although virtually everyone in Missouri politics believes the state badly needs to put more money into its fast-crumbling roads and increasingly rickety bridges, little progress has been made in the General Assembly this year to do so. And deep opposition to raising taxes could spell doom for any funding plan.

Missouri beer lovers could get their fill of rich milk stouts and hoppy pale ales on draft at convenience and grocery stores under proposals brewing in the state Legislature. The two measures would allow stores that sell packaged beer to add to their wares growlers, or take-home jugs of draft beer.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence defended the new state law that's garnered widespread criticism over concerns it could foster discrimination against gays and lesbians and said Sunday it wasn't a mistake to have enacted it.

Gov. Mike Pence called off public appearances Monday and sports officials planned an “Indy Welcomes All” campaign ahead of this weekend’s NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis as lawmakers scrambled to quiet the firestorm over a new law that has much of the country portraying Indiana as a state of intolerance.

The IRS has eliminated a huge processing backlog of groups seeking tax-exempt status, the agency's chief said Tuesday. Tea party organizations' claims that they were singled out for tough treatment when they applied for that designation were at the heart of a 2013 controversy over the agency.

The State Department says it can find only four emails sent between former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff concerning drone strikes and certain U.S. surveillance programs, and those notes have little to do with either subject.

Lawyers for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rested their case in his federal death penalty trial Tuesday, a day after they began presenting testimony designed to show his late older brother was the mastermind of the 2013 terror attack.